#6666 IRIX: configure mistakenly detects $_host_alias-strings

[canavan]

Using 1.7.0-branch, configure uses a test Checking for $_host_alias-strings... that is too optimistic. For some reason, on IRIX 6.5 /usr/bsd/which produces the error message on stdout, and therefore tries to use $_host_alias-strings even if that does not exist:

$ echo "x$(which $_host_alias-strings 2>/dev/null)"
x-strings not in /usr/sbin /usr/bsd /sbin /usr/bin /usr/bin/X11 . /usr/local/bin /usr/nekoware/bin /usr/local/bin /usr/nekoware/bin /usr/local/bin /usr/nekoware/bin /usr/local/bin /usr/nekoware/bin

I'd propose extending the test to check the return result as well, e.g.

if test ! "x$(which $_host_alias-strings 2>/dev/null)" = "x" && which $_host_alias-strings >/dev/null 2>&1; then

alternatively, one could check if the output of which refers to an executable file, e.g. [ -x "which $_host_alias-strings" ]

[digitall]

Will look at amending the configure check.

[digitall]

canavan: Please test the attached patch please.

This is based on the method you indicated, but the code required is much simpler. It passes the checkbashisms test and should be POSIX compliant shell code, so we hope that IRIX works with this, but the documentation for your which is rather unclear about the expected return values:
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/u_man/cat1/which.z

[digitall]

If this works, I'll commit this (with thanks to LordHoto for helping work this out).

[canavan]

A quick test shows that the new test is working properly and detects mips-irix6.5-strings exactly if it is available.

thanks.

[digitall]

No problem. Committed fix to master as150ac10a1e233540e56d272bfd6f21492c7b2a4e.
Backported to release branch-1-7 as b188db856075d750748a3cb8ce8f067212fb3d47.

Closing as fixed.